Africa/Europe: Ambassadors for Peace

We want to keep the Good

Meeting with Charity Birungi and Ernest Nkurunziza in Musanze, Rwanda

Ernest Nkurunziza actually lives in Musanze. At the moment he lives in Butare because of a Master’s degree. The 180 kilometres to Musanze he drove by bus. “If you come the long way from Germany, then I can also take the bus from Butare for the few hours,” he says warmly.

Nevertheless, I was flat. I didn’t expect that much effort. Suddenly I was a bit proud to be an ambassador of the GPENreformation network.

In any case, I asked myself: How do I actually set my priorities? During the exchange with each other we quickly came to the conclusion that there are good counter-arguments for every good concept. The fact that many people in Germany are dependent on alcohol or nicotine does not question whether sincere and consistent thinking makes sense or not.

This is not changed by the fact that there are people who do not attach importance to making wise and sustainable decisions.

In the course of the talks Charity Birungi got to the heart of the matter by saying: “If we want to influence and change our countries for the better, then we should see the good of other cultures”. This is also true when there is uncontrolled growth or bad examples because people repeatedly decide to find peace and high quality too laboriously.

This also applies to the reconciliation process in Rwanda. The genocide took place 25 years ago. “Our country was in a terribly bad state at that time,” says Charity, “without reconciliation it would have been difficult:”

I’m still looking for a quiet room for a little video. Benjamin works at the reception desk. That’s all the name tag says. He leads me to the roof. That’s the best place. That was him, too. When Charity sees the young man, she is thrilled. “My son”, she says, “My son, now you’re a receptionist here!”

Afterwards Benjamin will tell me that Charity was also a nice teacher he remembers with pleasure.

 

Hear more about Charity and Ernest!

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This text was written by Ambassador Tom Laengner.